Facebook partners Asia Foundation to fight online hate

FACEBOOK on Thursday (3) said it has launched ‘The Resiliency Initiative’ website that aims to provide tools and resources towards combating hate and intolerance online.

Launched in partnership with The Asia Foundation, The Resiliency Initiative ‘aims to promote tolerance, strengthen interfaith and inter-ethnic understanding, and counter violent extremism in Asia Pacific’.

‘This community-centred initiative began with online workshops for 60 organisations from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Pakistan and the Philippines. The website is the next step in strengthening the community of practice,’ Facebook said in a blogpost.

‘The Resiliency Initiative’ website provides civil society organizations with a suite of tools and resources to help them harness social media to build stronger communities-particularly in areas affected by violent conflict, it added.

This includes guidance on getting started on social media, creating effective online content, managing presence on social media, measuring impact, and combating misinformation. It also includes case studies with insights from communities across the region.

The website is currently available in English and is launching in Bengali, Thai and Urdu in the coming weeks, with more languages to follow in the future, the statement said.

‘At Facebook, we aim to identify and remove harmful content from our platforms as quickly as possible- and we’ve made good progress in this area. But this is just one part of the solution. It’s equally important to enable constructive dialogue and encourage counter speech in order to promote social cohesion and counter offline harm,’ the blog said.

The Resiliency Initiative is one of the flagship programmes to address hate and violent extremism, it added.

In the second half of the year, ‘The Resiliency Initiative’ will work with civil society organizations in Asia Pacific to build out their social resilience campaigns to combat hate online, and expand the reach of the program into new communities in the region.

‘We’re also partnering with experts on a digital storytelling training program,’ the statement said.